


It's Funny How Memory Works

by Resistance



Category: Country Music RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resistance/pseuds/Resistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2012. Presented without comment or characters....</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Funny How Memory Works

_  
It's funny how memory works. I don't think about that time on purpose, but certain lyrics bring up certain memories. I think I've heard a song that mentions that very idea, come to think of it. His lyrics, of course bring up more memories than even my own. If that’s because he wrote them or said them, I don't know. It's just a few words sometimes, but I know why he chose them. There are things he wanted me to hear. And I can't help but listen._

  
  
Three confused little children sit close together in the backseat of a truck. Small hands hold even smaller ones. The driver doesn’t look at them, he can’t. He doesn't want to look at anything. His eyes are glued to the road, he won’t cry, he can't do that either. That isn't what men do. And he knows crying will scare them. He knows they're scared enough. They heard the yelling. They knew they had been packed up quickly and they were leaving home in the middle of the night. They know he is upset.   
  
The man on the porch doesn't have anyone to scare, so he doesn't feel the need to hold back. The tears in his eyes flow freely down his cheek as he watches the truck drive off, hoping against reality that the truck will stop, that the driver will change his mind. But he doesn’t. He keeps driving until the the man can’t see the truck any longer. He goes inside the empty house and pours himself a drink, then another. And another. Enough of that amber liquid so he doesn't see the glow of those red lights when he closes his eyes anymore.  
  


_I thought this heart was made of steel and bullet proof,  
but the memory of the tail lights fading ripped it right in two._

  
  
Forgiveness is a living thing. It grows and wilts by the day, sometimes by the hour. It is watered with time and with understanding. Agonizing months went by before enough forgiveness could grow to flowers, but the time did come, and he truck drove back home, and the three little confused children ran back inside their house and played a game of pretending those months never happened and they never saw tears in their father’s eyes. And the man stepped out on the porch. And the driver climbed the steps to meet him. But he stopped short of touching him. Forgiveness had not grown that full yet. They looked a moment at each other before the driver knew he had made the right choice and allowed himself to be lead into the house.   
  
But day by day, the forgiveness grew. And the closeness was felt again. And the touches became more familiar. And love was spoken of and responded to. Time was given for the growing, nothing was forced. When reminders appeared, when words were heard, or thoughts were had, the forgiveness wilted, but never did it die. The children did not understand the changing moods, but the eldest said a prayer every night that they wouldn't pack up again. She held tight to both of her parents, wanting them in the same space as much as she could manage. Her parents noticed, of course, and gave her what she wanted. And in turn they gave themselves what they wanted. They allowed themselves closeness. She forgave them and thus they were forgiven.   
  


_She knows the man I ain't, she forgives me when I can't._

  
  
The anger is tangible in the house. How dare he bring another man into their home? How dare he agree to raise innocent children with a man? How could he look their parents in the eye and say he loves a man? The man in question is not the subject of conversation, they have chosen to ignore him completely, he is something less than human to them, something that has infected their son. If they do not speak to him maybe he will just go away, maybe they can save their son yet. They see how their grandson clings to the disease, but there is time to save him, he is still young, he will remember nothing of this time of sickness his father indulged in. He will forget this awful disease.  
  
The disease in question was soothing his son, holding him as comfortingly as he could despite the tension throughout his body. But of course the baby could sense every bit of it and held all the tighter to his father. He would grow to see no difference between this man and the one that gave him DNA. He would also grow to wonder why he had only one grandmother and no other grandparents though he knew the missing three were not dead. He would never wonder, however, why not one of his many uncles were actually related to him by blood. Not one of those three children ever stopped to think about the difference between blood relations and any other kind of family. Family, to them, was family. And strangers were strangers.   
  
The baby shielded himself against the strangers, as did the middle child, hiding behind any familiar leg she could grab. She wanted nothing to do with the tension around her as much as she wanted away from the strangers. She longed for the familiar surroundings of her room, her safe space. The eldest child was fearless right up until she made the mistake of looking into the eyes of the one person she had turned to for honesty and stability. She saw both fear and anger. And she was angry and afraid. And she stood up taller and she dared the strangers to say a word to her or her fathers. And the strangers shook their heads and walked away and ignored them. And that is how she became the hero of the middle child and the baby. And a hero to her parents, who also never saw a difference between the children they gave DNA to and the ones they didn't.  
  


_If you don't ever do anything else for me, just do this for me, brother.  
Come on, homeboy._


End file.
